Assessment of the Effectiveness of the Greek Implementation. VRU-TOO Deliverable 14

The work of VRU-TOO is targeted specifically at the application of ATT for reducing risk and improving comfort (e.g. minimisation of delay) for Vulnerable Road Users, namely pedestrians. To achieve this, the project operates at three levels. At the European level practical pilot implementations in three countries (U.K., Portugal and Greece) are linked with behavioural studies of the micro-level interaction of pedestrians and vehicles and the development of computer simulation models. At the National level, the appropriate Highway Authorities are consulted, according to their functions, for the pilot implementations and informed of the results. Finally, at the local level, the pilot project work is fitted into specfic local (municipality) policy contexts in all three pilot project sites. The present report focuses on the Elefsina pilot application in Greece and the relevant National and Local policy contexts are the following. At the National level, the ultimate responsibility for road safety and signal installations rests with the Ministry of Environment and Public Works. The Ministry is responsible for the adoption of standards and solutions for problems and also for a large number of actual installations, since local authorities lack the size and expertise to undertake such work on their own One of the project's aims is to provide information to the Ministry as to the suitability of the methods developed for aiding pedestrian movement, ultimately leading to a specification for its wider use. The Ministry is expecting to use the final results of the present study for possible modifications of its present standards for pedestrian controlled traffic signals. At the local level (Elefsina) the municipality has, in the past, pursued environmental improvements through pedestrianisation schemes in the city centre. At the same time it has developed a special traffic management policy, to solve a particularly serious problem of through traffic. A summary of the policy is contained in Appendix A and more details in a previous deliverable (Tillis, 1992). In the particular case of Elefsina pedestrian induced delay to through vehicular traffic, may form a key element in this policy ensuring at the same time, an incentive to divert to the existing bypass and enhancing pedestrian movement. The effectiveness of pedestrian detection techniques tested in the pilot, will provide valuable information on the future implementation of the policy. Thus, the Elefsina Pilot Project operates at the same time on three levels: It provides a basis, in combination with the other two pilot project sites, for comparing the effects of pedestrian detection on pedestrian safety and comfort at a European level. It provides information to the National authorities (Ministry of Environment and Public Works) for their standards setting, scheme design and implementation tasks. It fits into a comprehensive plan at the local level for effecting environmental improvements and enhancing pedestrian amenity and comfort at the same time. In addition, an investigation into the capabilities of pedestrian detectors to function as data collection devices, was performed. The data 'quality gap' betweenvehicular and pedestrian tr&c may be closed with the utilisation of microwave pedestrian detectors, providing a more solid foundation for the planning for total person movement through networks (vehicle occupants, public transport passengers, pedestrians). This the second deliverable issued for Elefsina and comprises of the main section which contains a description of the work undertaken, the results and a number of appendices serving as background material in support of the statements in the main text

CacheMAsT: Cache Management Analysis and Visualization Tool

Recent approaches have proposed to empower Internet Service Providers (ISPs) with caching capabilities that can allow them to implement their own cache management strategies and as such have better control over the utilization of their resources. In this demo paper, we present CacheMAsT (Cache Management Analysis and Visualization Tool), a decision support tool to visualize the configuration and performance of in-network cache management approaches. CacheMAsT is aimed at assisting researchers and engineers in analyzing and evaluating the different factors that can affect the performance of a cache management strategy and ultimately decide on the optimal approach to apply

Thermal certification tests of Orbiter Thermal Protection System tiles coated with KSC coating slurries

Thermal tests of Orbiter thermal protection system (TPS) tiles, which were coated with borosilicate glass slurries fabricated at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), were performed in the Radiant Heat Test Facility and the Atmospheric Reentry Materials & Structures Evaluation Facility at Johnson Space Center to verify tile coating integrity after exposure to multiple entry simulation cycles in both radiant and convective heating environments. Eight high temperature reusable surface insulation (HRSI) tiles and six low temperature reusable surface insulation (LRSI) tiles were subjected to 25 cycles of radiant heat at peaked surface temperatures of 2300 F and 1200 F, respectively. For the LRSI tiles, an additional cycle at peaked surface temperature of 2100 F was performed. There was no coating crack on any of the HRSI specimens. However, there were eight small coating cracks (less than 2 inches long) on two of the six LRSI tiles on the 26th cycle. There was practically no change on the surface reflectivity, physical dimensions, or weight of any of the test specimens. There was no observable thermal-chemical degradation of the coating either. For the convective heat test, eight HRSI tiles were tested for five cycles at a surface temperature of 2300 F. There was no thermal-induced coating crack on any of the test specimens, almost no change on the surface reflectivity, and no observable thermal-chemical degradation with an exception of minor slumping of the coating under painted TPS identification numbers. The tests demonstrated that KSC's TPS slurries and coating processes meet the Orbiter's thermal specification requirements

Manufacturing of PolyHIPE-based Porous Microparticles for Bone Tissue Engineering

Particle-based systems have great potential as scaffolds for tissue engineering, since they are injectable, avoiding the need for open surgery. When a bone cancer is removed, the void that’s formed requires filling with a biomaterial to encourage bone regrowth. Two main methods of filling these voids include using autograft material or bone ceramics. Injectable cell-scaffolds allow keyhole surgery which would be impossible with current methods of treatment. Here we are investigating a method for production of spherical microporous particles of 100-800 µm. The microporous material is constructed from a HIPE (High Internal Phase Emulsion) via photocuring. The stir-emulsion method produces a wide range of particle sizes and the T-junction fluidic device produces a very narrow range of particle sizes. With both methods it is possible to change the mean particle size and the particle size distribution. The porosity of the particles can be altered independently by the use of temperature during the initial polyHIPE formation. Mesenchymal hES-MPs cells were cultured on particles which had been coated with acrylic acid via plasma deposition. The cells enable the agglomeration of particles into 3D structures with cell growth both into and between particles

Osteosarcoma growth on trabecular bone mimicking structures manufactured via laser direct write

This paper describes the direct laser write of a photocurable acrylate-based PolyHIPE (High Internal Phase Emulsion) to produce scaffolds with both macro- and microporosity, and the use of these scaffolds in osteosarco-ma-based 3D cell culture. The macroporosity was introduced via the application of stereolithography to produce a clas-sical woodpile structure with struts having an approximate diameter of 200 ?m and pores were typically around 500 ?m in diameter. The PolyHIPE retained its microporosity after stereolithographic manufacture, with a range of pore sizes typically between 10 and 60 ?m (with most pores between 20 and 30 ?m). The resulting scaffolds were suitable substrates for further modification using acrylic acid plasma polymerisation. This scaffold was used as a structural mimic of the trabecular bone and in vitro determination of biocompatibility using cultured bone cells (MG63) demon-strated that cells were able to colonise all materials tested, with evidence that acrylic acid plasma polymerisation im-proved biocompatibility in the long term. The osteosarcoma cell culture on the 3D printed scaffold exhibits different growth behaviour than observed on tissue culture plastic or a flat disk of the porous material; tumour spheroids are ob-served on parts of the scaffolds. The growth of these spheroids indicates that the osteosarcoma behave more akin to in vivo in this 3D mimic of trabecular bone. It was concluded that PolyHIPEs represent versatile biomaterial systems with considerable potential for the manufacture of complex devices or scaffolds for regenerative medicine. In particular, the possibility to readily mimic the hierarchical structure of native tissue enables opportunities to build in vitro models closely resembling tumour tissue

Osteosarcoma growth on trabecular bone mimicking structures manufactured via laser direct write

This paper describes the direct laser write of a photocurable acrylate-based PolyHIPE (High Internal Phase Emulsion) to produce scaffolds with both macro- and microporosity, and the use of these scaffolds in osteosarco-ma-based 3D cell culture. The macroporosity was introduced via the application of stereolithography to produce a clas-sical woodpile structure with struts having an approximate diameter of 200 ?m and pores were typically around 500 ?m in diameter. The PolyHIPE retained its microporosity after stereolithographic manufacture, with a range of pore sizes typically between 10 and 60 ?m (with most pores between 20 and 30 ?m). The resulting scaffolds were suitable substrates for further modification using acrylic acid plasma polymerisation. This scaffold was used as a structural mimic of the trabecular bone and in vitro determination of biocompatibility using cultured bone cells (MG63) demon-strated that cells were able to colonise all materials tested, with evidence that acrylic acid plasma polymerisation im-proved biocompatibility in the long term. The osteosarcoma cell culture on the 3D printed scaffold exhibits different growth behaviour than observed on tissue culture plastic or a flat disk of the porous material; tumour spheroids are ob-served on parts of the scaffolds. The growth of these spheroids indicates that the osteosarcoma behave more akin to in vivo in this 3D mimic of trabecular bone. It was concluded that PolyHIPEs represent versatile biomaterial systems with considerable potential for the manufacture of complex devices or scaffolds for regenerative medicine. In particular, the possibility to readily mimic the hierarchical structure of native tissue enables opportunities to build in vitro models closely resembling tumour tissue

On the Impact of Fixed Point Hardware for Optical Fiber Nonlinearity Compensation Algorithms

Nonlinearity mitigation using digital signal processing has been shown to increase the achievable data rates of optical fiber transmission links. One especially effective technique is digital back propagation (DBP), an algorithm capable of simultaneously compensating for linear and nonlinear channel distortions. The most significant barrier to implementing this technique, however, is its high computational complexity. In order to fully characterize the performance of DBP, there is a need to model the algorithm under the constraint of a fixed hardware complexity which, crucially, would include the bit-depth of the multiplication operation. In this work, DBP and a single nonlinear step DBP implementation, the Enhanced Split Step Fourier method (ESSFM), are compared with linear equalization using a generic software model of fixed point hardware. The requirements of bit depth and fast Fourier transform (FFT) size are discussed to examine the optimal operating regimes for these two schemes of digital nonlinearity compensation. For a 1000 km transmission system, it was found that (assuming an optimized FFT size), in terms of SNR, the ESSFM algorithm outperformed the conventional DBP for all hardware resolutions up to 13 bits

Fast variables determine the epidemic threshold in the pairwise model with an improved closure

Pairwise models are used widely to model epidemic spread on networks. These include the modelling of susceptible-infected-removed (SIR) epidemics on regular networks and extensions to SIS dynamics and contact tracing on more exotic networks exhibiting degree heterogeneity, directed and/or weighted links and clustering. However, extra features of the disease dynamics or of the network lead to an increase in system size and analytical tractability becomes problematic. Various `closures' can be used to keep the system tractable. Focusing on SIR epidemics on regular but clustered networks, we show that even for the most complex closure we can determine the epidemic threshold as an asymptotic expansion in terms of the clustering coefficient.We do this by exploiting the presence of a system of fast variables, specified by the correlation structure of the epidemic, whose steady state determines the epidemic threshold. While we do not find the steady state analytically, we create an elegant asymptotic expansion of it. We validate this new threshold by comparing it to the numerical solution of the full system and find excellent agreement over a wide range of values of the clustering coefficient, transmission rate and average degree of the network. The technique carries over to pairwise models with other closures [1] and we note that the epidemic threshold will be model dependent. This emphasises the importance of model choice when dealing with realistic outbreaks

Dynamics of multi-stage infections on networks

This paper investigates the dynamics of infectious diseases with a nonexponentially distributed infectious period. This is achieved by considering a multistage infection model on networks. Using pairwise approximation with a standard closure, a number of important characteristics of disease dynamics are derived analytically, including the final size of an epidemic and a threshold for epidemic outbreaks, and it is shown how these quantities depend on disease characteristics, as well as the number of disease stages. Stochastic simulations of dynamics on networks are performed and compared to output of pairwise models for several realistic examples of infectious diseases to illustrate the role played by the number of stages in the disease dynamics. These results show that a higher number of disease stages results in faster epidemic outbreaks with a higher peak prevalence and a larger final size of the epidemic. The agreement between the pairwise and simulation models is excellent in the cases we consider

Daratumumab, Cyclophosphamide, Bortezomib, Lenalidomide, and Dexamethasone as Induction and Extended Consolidation Improves Outcome in Ultra-High-Risk Multiple Myeloma

Purpose: The multicenter OPTIMUM (MUKnine) phase II trial investigated daratumumab, low-dose cyclophosphamide, lenalidomide, bortezomib, and dexamethasone (Dara-CVRd) before and after autologous stem-cell transplant (ASCT) in newly diagnosed patients with molecularly defined ultra–high-risk (UHiR) multiple myeloma (NDMM) or plasma cell leukemia (PCL). To provide clinical context, progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were referenced to contemporaneous outcomes seen in patients with UHiR NDMM treated in the recent Myeloma XI (MyeXI) trial.Methods: Transplant-eligible all-comers NDMM patients were profiled for UHiR disease, defined by presence of ≥2 genetic risk markers t(4;14)/t(14;16)/t(14;20), del(1p), gain(1q), and del(17p), and/or SKY92 gene expression risk signature. Patients with UHiR MM/PCL were offered treatment with Dara-CVRd induction, V-augmented ASCT, extended Dara-VR(d) consolidation, and Dara-R maintenance. UHiR patients treated in MyeXI with carfilzomib, lenalidomide, dexamethasone, and cyclophosphamide, or lenalidomide, dexamethasone, and cyclophosphamide, ASCT, and R maintenance or observation were identified by mirrored molecular screening. OPTIMUM PFS at 18 months (PFS18m) was compared against MyeXI using a Bayesian framework, and patients were followed up to the end of consolidation for PFS and OS.Results: Of 412 screened NDMM OPTIMUM patients, 103 were identified as UHiR or PCL and subsequently treated on trial with Dara-CVRd; 117 MyeXI patients identified as UHiR formed the external comparator arm, with comparable clinical and molecular characteristics to OPTIMUM. Comparison of PFS18m per Bayesian framework resulted in a 99.5% chance of OPTIMUM being superior to MyeXI. At 30 months' follow-up, PFS was 77% for OPTIMUM versus 39.8% for MyeXI, and OS 83.5% versus 73.5%, respectively. Extended post-ASCT Dara-VRd consolidation therapy was highly deliverable, with limited toxicity.Conclusion: Our results suggest that Dara-CVRd induction and extended post-ASCT Dara-VRd consolidation markedly improve PFS for UHiR NDMM patients over conventional management, supporting further evaluation of this strategy.</p